I had heard that WN was retiring the remainder of their B732's during the month of January 2005. I was wondering if there still any flying. I've been tracking random flights during the day for a couple days now and I've not seen any B732 aircraft listed.

If any of you Southwest Spirit folks out there can shed some light I would appreciate it. Thanks so much

Monday, 1/17/05 will mark the final flight of N95SW. I'm not sure if that's the final -200 flight, but it's the day that we, as a company, are celebrating the end of our -200s years of faithful service. I still say that we should convert them to cargo and bounce them around the system to move mail/freight.

NTS

United 717 heavy, you're facing the wrong way. Any chance you can powerback to get off of my deice pad?

And I was under the wrong impression that they are flying none of the 200s or 300s anymore. I flew from MCO to BWI this morning on "Arizona One" and it is a 737-300 series. But you know what, if they are in good shape..why not. "Arizona One" looks an flies as good as any 737NG.

>>>I still say that we should convert them to cargo and bounce them around the system to move mail/freight.

We'd still end up having hour/cycle issues, plus no HUD/HGS...

Better idea: Take all the -500s, strip them down to 56 seats, fly them everywhere out of DAL now, without waiting for the Wright Amendment to be rescinded, and use all that extra bin space to move a good amount of the mail/freight around the system....

Plus, you'd have the power of a -500, the quiet of a -500, and the ability to use HUD/HGS to make it into foggy places...

Better idea: Take all the -500s, strip them down to 56 seats, fly them everywhere out of DAL now, without waiting for the Wright Amendment to be rescinded, and use all that extra bin space to move a good amount of the mail/freight around the system....

Plus, you'd have the power of a -500, the quiet of a -500, and the ability to use HUD/HGS to make it into foggy places...

Interesting idea...although yanking 66 seats out of a -500 could cause slight CASM issues. I do like the idea of a 1:19 F/A-Pax ratio...even if they only put two of us onboard that's 1:28....do have any idea how much reading I could get done??

And I was under the wrong impression that they are flying none of the 200s or 300s anymore. I flew from MCO to BWI this morning on "Arizona One" and it is a 737-300 series. But you know what, if they are in good shape..why not. "Arizona One" looks an flies as good as any 737NG.

Afterall its a BOEING

Cheers..

OURBOEING

Wow...where did you develop that impression? We have a lot of -300s and they will be around for a long time. I want to say about half, or close to half the fleet consists of -300s. There has to be close to 200 of them. I don't have the exact numbers, but yeah I think after the -200s are gone, we will have about 417 aircraft. I know we got up to 420, but the number has gone down, or is going down as the -200s are being retired faster than the new -700 deliveries are coming. I'm sure OPNLguy has the numbers and wouldn't mind sharing.

It does depend what station you are talking about, but at SJC the ratio of -300s to -700s has to be around 50/50. But I've heard many stations say they mainly see -700s. SNA is an example of a city that only sees -700s.

[Edited 2005-01-02 04:24:35]

ALL views, opinions expressed are mine ONLY and are NOT representative of those shared by Southwest Airlines Co.

We ended the year with 417 aircraft, so taking the 5 remaining -200s and the 25 -500s off, that leaves us with 387 (-300s and -700s) and since we have 194 -300s, that means we have 193 -700s. With the first -700 deliveries in January (starting with N200WN), we'll be exactly 50/50, and the -700 fleet will get bigger from there.

N200WN will also be the first -700 delivered to us without "eyebrow" windows...

"Do you know the reasoning behind N200WN being delivered without the eyebrow windows?"

The rumblings I have heard are that 1) yes, they are a cost savings by not having them and 2) since the major function of these windows was to increase the pilots outside visibility to spot traffic, they aren't as necessary with TCAS. So, they might as well save the bucks.